How to deal with “Armageddon the Sequel” and save £30.1m next year across Rhondda Cynon Taff’s services was discussed in detail on Thursday during a cross-party brainstorm.

The cabinet meeting, chaired by RCT Council leader Councillor Andrew Morgan – who invited Independent, Liberal Democrat and Plaid Cymru councillors to join his Labour cabinet in discussion – highlighted the seriousness of the “dire” situation and the need for all parties to work together to come up with ways of bridging the £70m gaping hole in the council’s budget over the next four years.

Chris Lee, director of financial services at RCT Council, started the meeting by giving a presentation about the state of the council’s finances.

This showed how almost 80% of council funding comes from Welsh Government, around 19% comes from council tax and around 1% comes from reserves.

Out of this, 28% is protected for schools and education, 8% is for non school education, 27% is for community services, 14% is for environment and the rest covers costs including corporate services, the council tax replacement scheme, capital and levies.

Mr Lee said: “This demonstrates the inflexibility we have. The amount we can look to influence is very small.

“Every 1% difference we get from the Welsh Government represents £3.5m in our budget and we need to build a model on a -4% at the moment.

“We have a £30.1m gap, which includes a full year of planned nursery admissions.

“Not changing this next year will add a further budget gap next year and the year after.

“With efficiencies and phase two cuts, excluding leisure, we have a £23m gap we still need to address – and we need to set the budget by March next year.”

Following the presentation, Coun Morgan described the situation as a “depressing picture”.

He said: “This current financial year we were expecting a small increase from the Welsh Government, but instead we ended up having a cut and next year the cut is bigger than expected again.

“I want to emphasise to people who say we’ve been targeting elderly and community services, that we do now provide over and above services that other authorities offer. But this area isn’t protected, so we are going to be facing a whole other ball game.

“There’s big chunks of money we can’t touch and we’re ultimately not going to save this kind of money without significant service changes.

“The only way we’re going to get things in order is by starting to make cuts fairly soon in this financial year.”

Councillor Geraint Hopkins, cabinet member for children’s social services and equalities, added: “Everybody is concerned about this, all our staff are extremely concerned for their own position.”

Plaid Cymru Councillor Pauline Jarman, leader of the council’s opposition, agreed to be a “critical friend” during any discussions surrounding cuts, which she called Armageddon the Sequel. But, she said: “I want to make it clear, I’m not going to be politically gagged.”

Liberal Democrat Councillor Mike Powell also agreed he would be more than willing “to work with this authority” but he said: “If I do not get the information that’s pertinent I will come to you Coun Morgan. My only concern is that we’re shutting places that could make the authority money and keeping others that are a drain. “

Coun Morgan responded by saying the council hasn’t closed any leisure centres yet and that the council is doing a further review by going around leisure centres asking for suggestions of how savings and profits can be made. He also urged opposition councillors to not dwell on previous decisions which have been made and instead to come up with productive ideas for the future.

He added: “Let’s not spend six months going over the past.”

A number of suggestions to save some of the money needed were put forward during the meeting.

While Councillor Eudine Hanagan, cabinet member for education and lifelong learning, expressed how important she felt it was to revisit cutting nursery education provision – a previous proposal which was overturned by a judicial review.

Another suggestion put forward was outsourcing council services to the private sector.

In response, some councillors said this could save money, while others said they were neither for or against this idea, but that it could be dangerous if it went wrong and ended up costing the council even more money.

Independent Councillor Paul Baccara also suggested the council could save money by enabling people to apply for NHS continuing health grants, and therefore making the NHS pay for elderly nursing care instead of the council. He said this could save the council around £1m a year for every 20 people.

While Independent Councillor Paul Wasley spoke about the issue of sick pay and how between £15m to £19m is spent on this a year in RCT council.

He also said that rather than closing leisure centres the council could charge families £100 a year to use them and also rent out the facilities for functions such as weddings.

He added: “My proposal is simple, I request that we engage in meaningful discussions to explore ways of delivering the same services.

“Just because we are doing the best in Wales, does that mean we are doing the best?”

David Stoneman, a member of the public from Tonyrefail, also spoke at the meeting.

His main message was for the council to start asking the public and staff for opinions on how to save money.

He said: “If you keep asking the same people, you will get the same answers.”

Coun Morgan responded to this by saying this is exactly what he is doing and has already created a feedback tool on council employees internet page so they can suggest ways of saving money.

He added that he hopes to make this tool available on the council’s public website so residents can also have their say.